Would You Take It All Away?
by Awesome Cheese Sandwich
Summary: What happens when Britain gets amnesia? The only thing he remembers is his name, and assumes he is a human.
1. Chapter 1

_Good Lord! I'm working on two stories at once! Since I really like the idea of this one, I might even finish this one before the one I started first._

_And, as many fanfictions start with: I do not own Hetalia._

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><p><strong>Countries are not humans. Humans are born after two other humans have sex. Humans go to school, fall in love, develop, get a job, get a life, have a family, accumulate products and consume media, get old, and eventually die after a decline in physical and mental ability that comes with age.<strong>

**Countries cannot live lives like that: they usually live on their own, go to war over their selfish bosses' decisions. Countries are semi-immortal; their actions and decisions affect large landmasses and populations; which gives them god-like properties. They watch the world spin over and over again as empires rise and crumble. When humans die, get forgotten, and decompose away, countries continue on. Alone and through extremes of suffering.**

**But a country had no choice to live this life. If you were a country, would you want to take it all away and live the life of a human?**

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><p>Britain awoke in his flat in central London. His deep green eyes burst open, pupils expanding and contracting to adjust to the current level of light. After staring at the blank, white ceiling for a few minutes, he finally turned his head to check the clock on his bedside table: 9:14 A.M. A further 10 minutes were gone before he decided to get out of bed. Big Ben, and the London skyline were clearly visible from the window of the kitchen. Of course, he was there the Day all of those were completed, he clearly remembered the bloke's face when Big Ben was finished, the smile of achievement. <em>Enough of reminiscing on my Industrial revolution. <em>After spinning around 180 degrees on the heel of his left foot, Britain was now standing in front of the fridge, which he quickly opened, grabbing the semi-skimmed milk. The sell-by date was yesterday, but a quick smell of the contents of the bottle proved that it would taste adequate, so he poured it into a bowl of Weetabix. As he ate, he pushed, and pulled, his fingers through his hair, using them as a brush. Then he rubbed his bushy eyebrows, getting rid of an itch.

He Brushed his teeth. He changed his underwear. "Right, let's see, what colour boxers should I go for today? Purple-and-green striped? Yellow with a picture of a Spitfire? Or the one with a picture of a cigar in front of the crotch?" _It doesn't matter, no-one else will see them, except for you, it's not like you're even going to have sex... _"Shut up, Brain!" In the end he decided to go with one that was red with white love hearts. To cover them up, he wore a pair of black formal trousers that were pressed, and over his upper body was an ironed red shirt with a black tie, and a grey trench coat with lapels and brass buttons.

Today he was going to meet Scotland to settle this whole 'Scottish Independence' thing. He left the high-rise block of flats he lived in, and entered the car park, where his Bentley Continental GT was waiting for him. He turned the key to start the engine, but the only thing that happened was a spluttering noise that the exhaust emitted. _What? Has great British engineering failed me? Fuck this, I'm getting a taxi. _As he entered the street, he knew that the humans probably wouldn't know who he was, to them he looked like a regular person. His citizens that lived in his landmass did not know that the blonde guy walking down the street was their country because he didn't want to be famous, Britain (the personified version) preferred to refrain from being in the spotlight during historical events, so he could walk down a street without a paparrazi.

Britain, without any particular emotion, walked down the pavement, where on the other side was a taxi rank, so he crossed the road. What his brain didn't register was the hint of red in the corner of his eye a few seconds before. There was a screech of tires, them something suddenly hit his left side. It was a bus. Then his right side and rest of his body slamed on the road, head hitting the cold ground with a violent impact.

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><p>Britain didn't remember anything of that morning. Or anything that had happened before that.<p>

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><p>Darkness. Eyes open. What happened next was a blur. He picked himself up from the road. The driver got out of the bus, asking, "Ar..." muffled voice, "...right?" He looked down and saw blood on the road. Britain didn't remember what he replied to the driver. But then he turned around and thought <em>Don't feel well. Going home.<em> He stumbled into the block of flats, and he forgot what happened next. Then he awoke in his bed.

Knowing only one thing, his name: Arthur Kirkland.


	2. Chapter 2

_**Britain's Plans for the next few days:**_

_**Saturday: Attend meeting with Scotland.**_

_**Sunday: Go to Tesco, and buy a few things from Oxford Street.**_

_**Monday: Go to work at Houses of Parliament.**_

These de-materialized the moment his head hit the ground.

Arthur subconsciously bolted upright in his bed and looked around, feeling disorientated. _Wait, what just happened. _He desperately tried to think of what happened before this. All that drifted into his mind were a few images of blurred colours and shaped moving quickly. Like a dream that was disappearing from memory after waking up. _It's no use._

After trying (and failing) to work out what was going on, he got out of bed and walked into the kitchen. The first thing that caught his attention was the almost empty bottle on the table. It had a green lid with a label that said 'semi-skimmed milk'. He decided to drink it's contents, only to so spit it out in surprise when he turned around and saw the view outside the window: tall buildings, streets and cars dominated the landscape. A train goes by, across a bridge over the Thames. A plane dropped below the layer of clouds on it's way to Heathrow. So much activity. But his face bore no expression. Instead, he just took in the information and moved on. The only thing that disturbed him about what he had just seen was that the view was awfully familiar.

Arthur walked away from the kitchen and, not looking where he was going, into a mirror. Surprised, he backed away, then saw the man staring back at him. The person with green eyes, and the medium-long shaggy blonde hair, with a fringe that ran in strands across his forehead, and large bushy eyebrows. "Oh," he said expressionlessly and walked back to the kitchen because he was hungry.

Scotland was waiting in the conference room. "Where is he?" He complained, "if that wanker doesn't show up, I'm getting independence."

Arthur, with some cheese and tomato sandwiches in his coat pocket, left his flat and began to look around. The way he walked was familiar. He knew it. He had walked this way before. A faded memory of him walking this very route, in different weather, although he did not know when this happened. There was a taxi rank on the other side.

People passed Arthur as he continued on. He stared at each one as they walked past, especially their faces, trying to find something, anything that would help. _It's no use, _Arthur thought.

Then he saw a face he recognized: a young man, with blonde hair that was slightly darker than his. His hair was neatly parted, he also had blue eyes glasses and was wearing a bombardier jacket. But the thing that struck Arthur most was that the strange man was the large, loud, and obnoxious car he was driving.

Then the man pulled up next to the part of the pavement that he was on. "Dude," he grinned, "What do you think of my new Ford Mustang? Pretty awesome, isn't it."

"Erm, yeah," Arthur said nervously, thinking, _I think he knows me. Does he._

"Of course it was no problem for me to make, as you know my American car-making skills are just so good, of course," the man in the car said smugly.

"Okay," replied Arthur.

"Well, anyway," he said, " I'm off to meet Israel. That little rascal wants me to give him some more weapons. Isn't he such a cute kid?"

"Okay."

"Oh yeah, and apparently there's this guy called Canada who lives to the north of me. Did you know about him?"

"Well..."

"Anyway, it's been nice talking to you, Britain, bro. See ya' round!"

"Erm, well, okay, bye..."

But before he could say much, the man had already left, leaving two tyre marks and a lot of noise. Arthur looked away, only to immediately look back after hearing the sound of a big crash. He saw that the Mustang had hit another car in oncoming traffic, and then bumped into a lamp post. He watched a tyre come off and roll down the road, until it hit an old lady, knocking her over. The lamp post fell over, onto a corner shop. The man driving the Mustang staggered out, adjusted his glasses and his hair, and then shouted, "Woah! What a cool crash! Was someone filming that? We need to put that on Youtube? That's probably a complete write-off. Good thing I have like 300 other ones of those. Well, see ya loosers!" And he ran away, vanishing behind a corner.

Arthur stood there, watching the carnage, not saying a single word. He thought, _what an idiot. Whoever raised that guy is probably an idiot, too. They must have made a big mistake, maybe dropped him on his head when he was a child? How irresponsible. If I had to look after a kid I would never do that. I wonder why he called me Britain? _


	3. Chapter 3

Well, it's been a while, hasn't it? I haven't added another chapter in quite a few weeks, since I've been busy writing another story and making this animation I'm working on.

But before I start, I thought I should thank everyone for all the favourites/alerts this story has been getting, I had no idea it would get this popular. Thank you all so much!

- Awesome Cheese Sandwich.

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><p>As Arthur walked on he still struggled to remember what happened before this morning, and failed to do so successfully. <em>And who was that bloke that called me Britain? He was acting like we were friends. Why on Earth would I befriend a tosser like him? <em>He was so lost in thought and didn't look where he was going and bumped into a lamppost. "Oh butterknickers!" _It's no good. _

Still walking down the high street, Arthur kept turning his head to stare at the passing people. The more he looked at, the more detached he felt. But the feeling of being detached from people was nothing new; that was what shocked him most.

His memories were always reference points: something to rely on, and guided him.

Now nothing lay in their place.

Eating a sandwich at Trafalgar Square: _Well this is nice._ _I can't help but feel like I've been here before, many times. _Then he saw it for a split second: Him standing next to the man he saw earlier. All three of them were cheering among a crowd of other people waving union flags. The memory was over. _What could that possibly mean?_ He finished eating the sandwich and got down from where he was sitting (on top of a lion next to Nelson's Column), but lost his grip and fell to the ground, landing on his hands which he put in front of his face as a natural reflex, but a sharp ache erupted in his wrist. "Oh, bobbins! Flippin' biscuits! Son of a Wellington!"

The pain had not gone, but without any warning, Arthur felt the need to walk down a certain direction. He accepted the urge, and headed in the direction he felt his legs taking him. Walking on what a pre-planned route, legs subconsciously taking him in there because he had walked down that road so many times.


	4. Chapter 4

Once again, the sun rose over London, light drifted through the pink curtains of his room and into his now-peaceful mind, gently awaking him. After a day of wondering around the city with only natural curiosity to guide him, Arthur was able to pick up a few things: he had observed the people there and therefore assumed that he was the same species as them. (Unbeknown to him that he was a country, and not a human.) But, for sure, he knew that whoever he was he was suffering from a loss of memory. Anything before the morning the day before was almost blank, apart from a few blurred, rapidly moving colours and shapes. _People? Did I know them? Did I...love them?_

_I remembered picking himself from the tarmac that was stained red. Staggered away, my head throbbed in pain and he rested it, supported it with my hands. When I took them away, they were covered in blood. _That memory of yesterday morning was so vivid Arthur momentarily forgot where he was. Then he wept.

He finally heaved himself out of his bed, fell on the floor, then got up to pull the curtains apart, not bothering to get dressed. Light filled the room, revealing it to be hideously messy. Clothes, food packets, and some books lay strewn across the floor. _Why I a messy person? This won't do at all. _Arthur tries his best to tidy his bedroom, and was pretty sure he was successful, being pretty sure he had put his belongings in their correct places.

He made his way to the kitchen, stopping halfway down the corridor after the sight of his naked body caught his eye in the mirror. _Guess I don't have a bad physique for someone of my age, do I? Nice curves._

But he turned away, after approximately of staring at himself naked, deciding that was enough of that, and headed once again to the kitchen where he found his laptop. _Hey, this could help._

He stared down at the laptop that rested, lid closed, on the table. The word Toshiba on the lid caught his eye. In a blink, in the fraction of a second when he had his eyes closed, be saw the laptop being handed to him by someone. Arthur stopped, shook, feeling as though he was about to faint. "Who was it?" He whispered. Arthur sat down, and thought, feeling as though he was pushing his brain to it's maximum capability as he strained to remember. _It was a present, I looked up and saw a man with neat black hair. He looked Asian. _He couldn't remember everything he said, there had to be gaps in the speech that were filled with muffled noises coming from his mouth, but what he could remember was_"H...d-y, Britain...another...computer I've made. _

_So I received this as a gift. Who from though? And why was he calling me that? Britain._ The word 'Britain' stuck in his conscious, even though it irritated him and he tried his best to dismiss it.

_Wait. That blonde bloke called me that yesterday. Why?_

It was unknown to Arthur that he was Britain, he was the personification of the land he walks on, the people that live there, and they were him. He had no parents and materialized as a baby the moment his concept was created, the only people to look after him during his infancy and childhood were his "bosses", kings who were often cruel. All the history that happened in these islands was either his doing, or caused by one of his "bosses". To the humans, though, him and other nations' personification is the stuff of legend and most of their citizens don't believe they exist. The "bosses" are among the small amount of humans that know, but are not allowed to talk about it.


End file.
